The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Conventional techniques for employing a multi-functional peripheral (MFP) to scan, print or to otherwise process data often require a user to authenticate to the MFP before the MFP performs or completes a particular request. For instance, the user may be required to provide a username, password, and/or job release code via an interface of the MFP to access a pending print request. The process of user-authentication at the MFP can be error-prone, tedious and time-consuming for various reasons.
For example, when a release code is required to unlock a pending print request, the user may have limited or no knowledge of the document associated with the release code. This problem may be exacerbated when a user needs to manage multiple release codes for different print requests. Furthermore, once the release code for the print job has been created, the user has no choice in selecting specific portions of the document to print. The user typically enters the release code at the MFP, causing the MFP to print the entire document, which may unnecessarily waste printing resources and the user's time.